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Pantang's Curse
The Old Rule currently languishes under a magical curse authored by the wizard Pantang as punishment for a perceived betrayal on the part of King Sevy. History of the Curse Shortly after the period of reconstruction, King Cevye attempted to secure Pantang's loyalty by offering him Princess Trompander's hand in marriage. Pantang, however, proved a capricious and dangerous ally. After accepting the king's offer, he went on to summon a powerful demon who stole away with his betrothed, bringing the wizard's wrath down on the entire kingdom. Since that time Pantang has withdrawn from the royal court, and with him any chance of undoing the spell. Effects of the Curse The effects of the curse are still felt to this day. It afflicts each of the noble houses in different ways, often magically amplifying pre-existing problems. House Blackenblack House Blackenblack fell out of favour in the early days of the Great Retreat, when suspicions arose that Lord Blackenblack was in league with the Invincible Overlord. Whatever the truth, like the Lords of the other houses the Blackenblack nobility were forced to flee the Old Kingdom when the war turned in the Overlord's favour - their treachery, if treachery it was, affording them no quarter from their pursuers. While Cevye was loathe to move against one of the houses without proof of their betrayal, the royal attitude to House Blackenblack during the reconstruction was at best coldly indifferent and at worst openly hostile, with Lord Blackenblack's emmisaries shunned at court and financial assistance for building work withheld altogether. Because of this, Castle Blackenblack fell into disrepair long before the curse. It is also widely believed that Blackenblack's lands incubated the disease now rife throughout the Old Rule - which, again, was probably a result of Cevye and the other Lords' sustained disinterest in assisting the house with any internal problems not directly impinging upon their own families, vassals, trade or farmlands. Once Pantang's curse struck, however, Blackenblack's problems took on a depressingly literal dimension. Prior to the year of the Second Retreat those loyal to Blackenblack were simply ignored by the rest of the nobility, whereas after it they became impossible to communicate with, at least not directly. The earliest account of this disturbing magical shift can be found in the journals of Clarice of Ordnance, one of the first wave of pelorian clerics to travel to the Old Rule on a mission of healing, and, at that time, specifically tasked with the care of Sir Willem of Stormlake, Lord Blackenblack's critically ill nephew. The small makeshift house of healing within which Clarice and Willem were based was relegated to an enclosed area situated at least one mile outside Blackenblack Castle's grounds - the threat of infection so severe that any and all disease sufferers were kept in seclusion, with food and drink conveyed to and from the chapel via specially bred mules (the animals generally slaughtered within one week, long before the telltale welts and lesions associated with the most lethal conditions reared their heads). Because of this, the isolated group of clerics attending Willem remained ignorant of the wider problems the curse posed until two days after it struck, when they sent a neophyte was dispatched to Blackenblack Castle with instructions to report what had befallen their curse-wracked patient. Clarice's notes from the time describe a horrific change in Willem's condition. "20 Summertide, Year 11 of King Cevye's New Rule Woken at 6 bells by Sister Adele's shrieking. She is an unhappy woman at the best of times, but now, with everything that has befallen the child, I fear for her sanity and ask Our Lord to grant her stronger powers of forebearance. After rising I made straight to young Willem's bedside, out of concern that his sickness, which for all our prayers we cannot heal, may have developed some new complication. What greeted me there, I here privately confess, chilled me to the bone. Willem was sicker than ever, grey vomit drenching the pillow into which he wretched and sobbed. As for Sister Adele, his supposed nursemaid, she was drawn into the room's far corner, trembling with terror as if in the presence of the Great Shadow itself. When I questioned the cowering neophyte as to why she did not attend to our young charge, Adele was able to form only three words. I set them down now in an attempt to make sense of the morning's events. HE TURNED AWAY. Such simple words, but to speak them brings the taste of ashes to my mouth and feelings of shame so overwhelming that - and for this I can only beg my Lord's forgiveness - it makes me want to bury my head in the mud and forsake His great light forever, for fear my corruption should be exposed like maggots erupting from beneath dead flesh. At that moment, though, with Willem choking on his own stomach acids, I had no time to waste on the ramblings of a mad woman. Certain that the child would die if I did not act quickly, I snatched the phial of medicine to which the near catatonic neophyte clung as if it were some ward or holy symbol, and advanced on Willem's sick bed. The boy, for his part, did not mark my presence, his little body bucking and heaving with every desperate gasp. Knowing Willem would not hear me were I to ask him to turn, I uncorked the phial and reached for his head, a child's lullaby pouring unbidden from my mouth. But there was no calming the child, and, worse, he would not budge. I reached around, attempting to force the phial into his mouth, but - FIE! - I could do not it! Grasping only at tufts of hair, unable to find his lips, I struggled with him as the heaving got worse, until at last I called upon Sister Adele for aid. The girl, though, was rooted to the spot and would not come. Just as I had given up all hope, however, the door flew open and - Pelor be praised! - Sisters Wendy and Mirabelle were by my side. I ordered them spin young Willem so that I might find better purchase on his jaw, to which task they commited all their strength. All for naught. With a devil's fury we heaved and tugged, yet - how could this be? - still the boy remained rooted to the spot, drowning in his bolster. Tears welled in my eyes, for the child was surely done for, unless... Without a seconds hesitation I bid Wendy hold Willem still while I wrenched at the bed, sweeping the mattress, the frame and the pillow out from under him. Then, after catching my breath, the boy's rasping dwindling to a low wheeze somewhere behind me, I thanked the Lord for the mercy of bed fastenings hastily applied, and swung around to face my charge. How can I describe what happened then? For reason balks at the mere thought of it. At first it came upon me that Willem had shied away yet again, afeared, perhaps, that I wished him harm, the medicine transformed by his delirium into some deadly poison, and me, his nursemaid, into an executioner. 'Turn him about!' I demanded, at last finding myself tired of this petty struggle, and with a child no less! The anger grew in me